Squamish-Lillooet Regional District Zero Waste Education

The Zero Waste Education Program is touring schools in the Squamish Lillooet Regional District (SLRD). Students will learn where their waste goes, conduct waste audits, and participate in the Zero Waste Challenge. This blog follows the program, tracking the Zero Waste Challenge results. The program is an action initiative of the SLRD’s Solid Waste Management Plan. The goal of this plan is to reduce the regions solid waste by 67%.

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Monday, 27 February 2017

Thanks to Harmionne at Myrtle Philip Elementary School for creating this cool powerpoint video to help us remember what it takes to reduce waste. This was created as part of the Waste Reduction Week video contest of 2016. If any other classes think they have something to say, shoot us a picture or a video, that shows cool ways to ease our impact on the planet.

If we all think of a few ways to reduce waste, we will make this world a better place! Please share and post some ideas on waste reduction at zero in on waste on facebook.com and we can keep the conversation going!

Thursday, 16 February 2017

I remember when I was 14. That sounds like one of those statements that follows with " I had to walk a half an hour to school, shovel my driveway, and there were no games to play" . While these things are all true, that is not what is on the agenda today. What I remembered when I was chatting with some grade 8's recently in Squamish was that I challenged everything that I could, I questioned everything, and I did not take no for an answer when I was in grade 8. I remember sitting after school with the teacher questioning his every teaching with my friends and now I know why he used to say " I gotta get going now".
The most important thing I remember about grade 8 is that it is a time to question things, and so I posed the question to the students about what they could make, change, or improve to try to reduce waste. I told the grade 8's it was their job in life to question and want to change old ways and that other age classes could stick to routines and do the same old things. So they came up with some cool ideas and started thinking about new ways of doing things for a bit. Sure, some of these sound like far fetched ideas but so was typing on a screen to send words to someone else in the world at one time.
Here is a shot of some ideas they came up with:

A few other amazing things that are going on in the schools right now are:

1. Whiteboards- Many classes are using whiteboards which saves a ridiculous amount of paper and money for the classroom. What a terrific paper saving and cost saving measure! Way to Go!

2. Amy Erskineat Donn Ross Middle School uses pieces of old fabric to erase whiteboards. This is another amazing opportunity to up-cycle and save the cost of whiteboard erasers. Each town has reuse it centres that are a great source of old fabric.

One of my favourite ideas from the day was online homework, which is very doable and would save a lot of paper!

If there are more grade 8's out there that want to come up with a new idea to help reduce waste, please send it to slrdzerowaste@gmail.com. If we all could come up with one little idea that helped reduce waste and we were able to implement it, that would go a long way!

Thursday, 15 December 2016

To recognize Waste Reduction Week we asked school students within the SLRD to come up with some cool videos to show people what they thought about waste reduction. They did not disappoint! Three classes walked away with $100 in Chapters gift cards to purchase supplies for their class and hopefully these videos can help inspire all students in every school to do their part.

Here is the first in a Series called the Waste Buster Vids to show how cool kids can make cool videos and make a difference!»

Christmas is a time when we all produce ( or choose not to produce ) a lot of waste. New toys leave old toys laying aside not wanted anymore, wrapping paper lines the floor of many houses after presents are unwrapped and turkeys and stuffing leave us all feeling a bit stuffed.

Let's remember this xmas all the things we can do to reduce our impact such as:
1. Not using shiny paper that can not be recycled.
2. Remember to compost all of your food scraps and don't go over board with cooking. If you don't have a kitchen catcher, use a bucket, or a milk jug or any big container that will fit under your sink somewhere.
3. Check out buy and sell's for items as they are often a great bargain and keeps someone else's waste out of the landfill!
4. Donate old toys to shelters, Christmas hamper programs, etc.
5. Items like books, food, etc. that will be consumed or last a long time are great choices.
6. Most of all, give love as it never goes to waste!

Happy Monday!!Don't forget to get your film footage into me by Halloween. You have a great chance to win $100 Gift Card for supplies for your classroom.

Remember, we are making videos of your class and how students can reduce waste. Anything goes, you can video anything you would like to show how you can contribute to the goal of reducing waste in the world. Be creative,be spontaneous, tell us what we should do in the schools or at home to get rid of that yucky thing we call waste.

Friday, 14 October 2016

At a Parent Advisory Council meeting this week, I was asked to give parents an idea about how they could set up simple recycling and composting systems in their own homes.
So here goes: You should have at least four bins to make it easy on yourselves. The SLRD has created these handy sorting cards, that can be cut off to make labels for your bins.

I have a bin for paper and cardboard together, that gets separated on recycle day, a bin for mixed containers, a compost bin and a plastic bags bin.
Under the sink is a great place for what we call a "kitchen catcher" tote to put food scraps. My general rule of thumb for teaching little people about compost is " if you can put it in your mouth, you can put it in the compost" meaning any food we would eat, we can compost but not things we would not eat, for the most part.

That is a good starting point to start teaching children about recycling. So instead of saying "please put that in the garbage" you can say "please go put that in the recycling, it goes in the paper bin",etc. If children learn from a young age, that everything does not just go in the garbage, then maybe it will become routine eventually to think about where we put things.

While it is a great idea to integrate recycling and composting in every household, it is an even greater idea, to think about how these things got into our house in the first place. So, once you see how much plastic is being recycled, we can then think about how to reduce these single use items altogether. We do this by replacing them with reusable items. So, if it feels like hard work sorting recycling, then we can play a game to get rid of anything we throw out daily to any receptacle.
Here are a few solutions:
1. Use reusable items only
2. Use reusable shopping bags
3. Only cook enough food to eat and save leftovers
4. Reuse jars from the grocery store for storage.

Any students that would like to send in other possible solutions for reducing waste in any of their containers can ( with the help of a parent), write another solution on our Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com "zero in on waste slrd".

Each person that enters will be put in to a draw for reusable containers and other fun prizes.
Love This Place Reduce Your Waste!